The present invention relates to methods and devices for managing data buffers used for packets awaiting transmission on a communication link.
Since the error rate on most communication systems is non-zero, many systems employ a retransmission protocol to reduce the effective error rate. As shown in FIG. 1, data that is transmitted from a transmit buffer 5 is typically then stored in a retransmit buffer 10 until reception of the data is acknowledged. If the data is received correctly, a positive acknowledgement is returned to the transmitter from the receiver. The retransmit buffer can then be freed. If the data is received in error, a negative acknowledgement is returned to the transmitter and the data is then retransmitted 15. This approach is inefficient, requiring a separate retransmit buffer and a copy operation to save transmitted data in the retransmit buffer until the data is positively acknowledged.